May 11, 2008
Emergency Party Button
Brian Gaut lives in an average nondescript apartment. The only thing out of the ordinary is the object sitting in the middle of the coffee table -- a metal box adorned with a huge red button... the Emergency Party Button (EPB for short). Slam that button in a moment of extremity and the whole room changes personality. The lights go down, the curtains close, black lights, fog machines and lasers fire up, the stereo starts cranking out "What Is Love" by Haddaway and -- just like that -- your nondescript apartment is transformed into a totally happenin' disco.
The world would be a better place if every room had an emergency party button. You can check out a video of the room in action on Gaut's website. There's also complete instructions in case you want to roll your own EPB.
(Thanks LifeHacker)
Posted by Chris Spurgeon at 02:01 PM | Comments (0)
May 09, 2008
Green porno
For the last few months The Sundance Channel has been showing a odd and wonderful series of short films called "Green Porno". The shorts star actress Isabella Rossellini portraying a wide variety of invertebrates in the act of reproduction. The films have this great low-budget feel to them, with no special effects other than Rossellini's school play looking costumes. And the mating habits of these creatures are truly bizarre and eye-opening. So if you're interested in invertibrate behavior, or watching Isabella Rossellini mate, or both, Green Porno is worth checking out.
Posted by Chris Spurgeon at 09:49 PM | Comments (1)
May 04, 2008
Maker Faire 2008
Maker Faire was this weekend, and it was a truly amazing experience. Hundreds of exhibitors, thousands and thousands of people. My head is still reeling from the whole thing, but a few items stand out in my memory:
Adam Savage from Mythbusters gave a great talk, simultaneously hilarious and inspiring. Savage ran through his pre-Mythbusters career (which included art, sculpture, theater design, and extensive film special effects work). And he talked at length about the combination of enthusiasm and obsession that drives him to make insanely accurate recreations of movie props.
Speaking of obsession, the folks from ARTOO-DETOO.NET were there in force, with their custom-built R2 droids chirping and scooting around the halls.
I was also blown away by Tim Robinson's recreation of Charles Babbage's Difference Engine. The product of hundreds of hours of building and adjusting. I've always been fascinated by the idea of capturing mathematics in mechanisms, and the Difference Engine was the epitome of that. Here's a video of it in action.
But that's just a few of dozens and dozens of things that were amazing and wonderful. Ya gotta go!
Posted by Chris Spurgeon at 11:29 PM | Comments (0)
May 01, 2008
The end of phone tree hell?
We've all spent endless hours in phone tree hell... Press "1" for customer service, press "2" for tech support... If only there was a better way.
A company called Fonolo thinks they've come up with it. Their automatic systems have dialed hundreds of phone menus, meticulously working through every option, recording it all along the way. As a result, Fonolo has become a kind of Google for automated phone menus, letting you search for the specific number to call and the exact sequence of buttons to push to get to the information you need.
Better yet, the Fonolo system will make the call for you, and connect you in after it's slogged through the phone tree on your behalf.
Right now Fonolo is in limited beta. You can sign up to receive notice when they're ready for more users (sometime this fall). In the meantime you can check out this video of Fonolo CEO Shai Berger explaining his product.
Posted by Chris Spurgeon at 09:47 PM | Comments (0)